Stepsisters

A fierce new chorus of voices emerges from contemporary Ireland. Eight writers. Sixteen unforgettable stories. Translated from Irish for the first time. Stories from Belfast to Kerry, from the immigrant experience to the weight of tradition, these voices refuse easy comfort. They explore the raw territories of motherhood and loss, desire and betrayal and the clash between old certainties and new realities. A tattooist claims his lover's skin. A widow faces an impossible choice about her disabled son. Birds of prey stalk through dreams of environmental catastrophe. 

Here is family in all its beautiful, terrible complexity — the bonds that sustain us, the ones that suffocate, the love that heals and the secrets that destroy.



Bold, unflinching, and impossible to ignore Stepsisters showcases the depth and power of contemporary Irish women's writing.

Featuring stories from Éithne Ní Ghallchobhair, Deirdre Brennan, Róise Ní Bhaoill, Biddy Jenkinson,Katherine Duffy and

Réaltán Ní Leannáin.



Tara MacLeod is Associate Teaching Professor of Irish Language and Literature at the University of Notre Dame and a native Irish-speaker from Ceantar na nOileán in the Connemara Gaeltacht. She holds degrees in Social Administration and Library and Information Studies from University College Dublin, Social Work from University College Cork, and Clinical Mental Health Counselling from Indiana University, South Bend.

Brian Ó Conchubhair is Professor of Irish Language and Literature at the University of Notre Dame. A former Director of the IRISH Seminar and past-president of the American Conference of Irish Studies, he is a Fellow of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and has published extensively on Irish literature, culture and politics.